


Rebel Heart

by Sir_Bedevere



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), 6000 Years of Slow Burn (Good Omens), Angst with a Happy Ending, Aziraphale and Crowley Met Before The Fall (Good Omens), Crowley Was Raphael Before Falling (Good Omens), Gardens & Gardening, Gentleness, Good luck figuring out the tenses in this, Heaven, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Pining, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), Tenderness, fun with pronouns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 18:14:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21722860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sir_Bedevere/pseuds/Sir_Bedevere
Summary: He’s never forgotten, although She tried to burn the memory from him, that glorious day when he laid Aziraphale in the heavenly grass and kissed him. Only the once, because it hadn’t felt like something that needed to be grasped, needed to be held tightly, because it hadn’t felt like something She would soon take away from him.Crowley remembers before, and Aziraphale doesn't.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 240





	Rebel Heart

The principalities came about a bit after the other angels, created by Her in the early stages of the big Universe Project, when it became clear that there would need to be someone keeping an eye on things on the ground, so to speak. 

Raphael wasn’t there at the time. They were off in the far reaches of the new universe, hanging stars and painting galaxies, directing the angels under their care to do the same, to do it better, to make it better. The universe was going to be a big deal. It needed to be the best that it could be. 

So by the time Raphael and their workers returned, there was a whole new group of angels stumbling around the place, in forms that were entirely new. 

“The Almighty is testing it out,” Gabriel said, when Raphael asked them. “This is what the Humans will look like, when we get round to it. The ones for the little blue planet.”

“Huh,” Raphael said, watching the principalities moving around slowly in their heavy frames. If they squinted, Raphael could see their true forms squeezed into the bodies, how some of them had not learned to control it and their light was leaking out around the edges. 

“They’re very young, aren’t they?” Raphael said. “It’s been a long time since we had younglings.”

Gabriel just flared, their eyes rolling, and disappeared. They had no patience for the Almighty’s plans, not that She would ever know that. Raphael stuck around for a while, watched the kids learning to use the corporations. Learned words such as ‘arms’ and ‘legs’ and ‘walking’, and by the time the Almighty decided She liked the form so much that everyone needed one, Raphael at least felt like they had a vague idea of how it all worked. 

It was strange though, for a while, seeing everyone in the Human shapes. Raphael’s shape was tall and thin, with fire-bright red hair and yellow eyes, and they were content. Fingers were marvellous things that could hold paint brushes and stroke plants and touch their own hair, if they wanted to. And one day, Raphael was in the garden when a principality came wandering in. 

They’d been around for a great stretch of time now, the principalities, not young anymore, but Raphael still remembered them fondly as such. There was something about them still that was naive and lovely.

“Hello,” the principality said, shyly. “You’re Raphael.”

“I am. Welcome to my garden.”

The principality smiled, looked around slowly. They had the whitest blond hair Raphael had seen on any corporation, and eyes like the blue of the water She had put on the new Human planet. 

“What’s your name, angel?” Raphael asked gently, when it became clear they were a little bit lost for words. They could hardly blame them. The archangels didn’t generally go around talking to the lower orders. 

“Um - Aziraphale. My name is Aziraphale.”

“A lovely name,” Raphael said. “Would you care to sit with me?”

A flush of red rushed up Aziraphale’s neck, but they carefully folded their legs underneath them and sat on the grass. They smoothed their robe over their knees, worked their hands together. Nervous. 

“A garden is a little bit of an indulgence,” Raphael said, putting their hands on their knees, copying the other. “But I don’t get out to the stars much these days, so She allows me this instead. Do you like it?”

“It’s - very beautiful,” Aziraphale said, choosing their words carefully. “Did you make all of the - the - growing things?”

“The plants? I helped to make some of them. Some She made for the blue planet. Which one is your favourite?”

Aziraphale looked around, pointed almost randomly to a tree hung with fruit. 

“An apple tree,” Raphael said. “The Humans - when they are eventually made - will eat the apples. You favour a life-giving plant. A very good choice.”

Aziraphale ducked their head, blushed further still. It was quiet in Raphael’s garden, always quiet unless they wished it not to be, and a thought occurred to them.

“Aziraphale, did you follow me? No one else knows my garden is here, apart from the other archangels.”

“I just - I wondered. Where you go when I see you come this way. I’ve been watching you. I’m sorry.”

Raphael laughed, delighted with this eager young thing. “I am very flattered.”

“Really?” Aziraphale looked up from under their eyelids, a tiny smile on their pink lips.

“Of course. You are welcome here any time, Aziraphale. Just don’t go telling all your siblings or I’ll be overrun.” 

And so Raphael, quite by accident, made a friend of a principality. A lovely principality, who came to the garden every day and asked about the plants, asked about the stars, asked about the old days when it was just the Almighty and her archangels. Raphael didn’t know what job this one was marked for but they suspected it would be a good one, because Aziraphale was bright and curious and those were things She valued above all other traits. 

“Lie down with me,” Raphael said one day, stretched out on the green, green grass. Their corporation enjoyed this, laying out in the sun, basking in its warmth. She truly had created great things. Even having corporations seemed so normal now, such a good idea. 

Aziraphale came eagerly to their side and lay down. They were much calmer these days, less nervous - at least in Raphael’s garden. 

“I have heard,” Aziraphale said, laying their hands on their stomach. “That soon the Humans will be put on the blue planet and the next phase will begin.”

Raphael made a noise in their throat. They knew that, of course, already. 

“I’m curious to see it,” Aziraphale said, almost in a whisper. “And there are many who think I may be bound for a job there.”

“That’s fantastic,” Raphael said, eyes closed. 

“But if I was to be assigned there, I’d be very sad.”

“Why?”

There was no reply, and Raphael opened their eyes. Aziraphale’s beautiful face was screwed up, hands pressed to their eyes. Raphael sat up quickly, concern churning within them. 

“What’s the matter?”

“If I am assigned to the blue planet, I’d no longer be able to see you,” Aziraphale said, their voice catching. One stormy eye peeked out to see Raphael’s reaction, then closed when they saw them looking. 

“Oh my angel,” Raphael murmured, taking a gentle hold of Aziraphale’s wrists and freeing their eyes. “We will always be friends. I promise you. You make me so very happy.”

In their hands, Aziraphale’s wrists were trembling, and their eyes were shiny. Some of their light was leaking out, uncontained.

“Now, it’s alright,” Raphael said, freeing their wrists and laying back down, calming Aziraphale with a hand in their soft blond curls, stroking, pressing, gentling. “It’s alright, angel.”

Slowly, the light stopped, retreated and Aziraphale was in control once more. They grasped Raphael’s hand, and a soft kiss - lighter than a breath - was pressed to Raphael’s wrist. 

“Oh, Aziraphale,” Raphael smiled. “Come here.”

They kissed them in the grass, gentle and thorough, with a mouth that had never done such things - but seemed to know what to do.

**

Aziraphale, his gentle and thoughtful angel, did end up with a job on the blue planet, in the end. Crowley knew this because he ended up with a job there too, just in a very different capacity. 

“Well, that went down like a lead balloon,” he said, watching the angel for any sign that he recognised him from before. 

“Oh - yes. It did rather.”

Nothing. Not a spark of familiarity, and Crowley took ahold of Raphael’s rebellious heart and carved it from his chest, locked it away behind his demon skin. Much better for everyone if he tried to forget too. 

**

Six thousand years later, give or take a few, and Crowley is lying in a bed. Not his bed, because he hasn’t been back to his flat since the trials. Rather, he is lying in Aziraphale’s bed, drunk out of his mind but too comfortable to sober up. 

Aziraphale is not in the bed with him. This would be a problem, if Crowley allowed it to be. He’s never forgotten, although She tried to burn the memory from him, that glorious day when he laid Aziraphale in the heavenly grass and kissed him. Only the once, because it hadn’t felt like something that needed to be grasped, needed to be held tightly, because it hadn’t felt like something She would soon take away from him. 

But then the War had come, and Raphael chose the wrong side - or the right one, depending on your point of view - and when they’d fallen, Aziraphale didn’t remember them anymore. None of the angels did - not even Gabriel or Michael. It was as though Raphael had never existed. Crowley knows better, of course. He’s been carrying Raphael with him every moment since. 

And Raphael - Crowley - _Raphael_ \- _Crowley_ never stopped loving Aziraphale. 

Crowley sighs and rolls over onto his side, pulls the quilt up over his head. They’re both of them free now, free from Heaven or Hell, and so far they’ve been handling it very badly. Or well, depending on your point of view. They’ve been drinking and eating, walking, driving, drinking and eating, more drinking. Being together, and that’s the only thing Crowley has ever really wanted. To be with Aziraphale, to sit and walk at his side. All the rest, the stuff that his treacherous corporation longs for, he could do without. Even if it would be nice. Even if he thinks that sometimes he can still remember the taste of Aziraphale’s mouth beneath his. Even if he can still remember how Aziraphale’s cottony hair felt between his fingers, and wishes to know what Aziraphale’s would feel like tangled in his. 

Even if.

**

Crowley will never tell Aziraphale the Raphael secret. There doesn’t seem to be a reason he can come up with that makes it sound like a good idea. His angel is less nervy these days, without Heaven at their backs, but still prone to enormous self-flagellation if he’s feeling delicate. He’ll only feel guilty, feel like he should have remembered, even if Crowley explains that She literally took the memories from his head. 

And then he might ask how close they were, and Crowley will have to explain that Raphael was Aziraphale’s very best friend, truest love. That Raphael had never felt the touch of another’s hands on them, before Aziraphale. 

Definitely not.

So the days go by, slower than time has gone for them before, and Crowley is living at the bookshop, because he has no reason not to. 

“I’ve been thinking, my dear,” Aziraphale says one evening, over some sushi takeaway. “About leaving London. At least for a time.”

For a time can mean anything to them. _Anything._

“Oh,” Crowley says, trying to stay calm. “Where will you go?”

“Not far. The South Downs, perhaps. I’d like to be near the sea. I miss it.”

“Sounds good.” Crowley sits up, slips on his sunglasses. Just when he’s been feeling safe enough to not wear them. “Well, I don’t mind a long drive sometimes - I could visit you.”

“Oh - oh.” Aziraphale blushes, like that angel who once blushed in a garden. “Well, I did rather think that you’d come with me. To live there. If you wished to.”

Live together, officially. Not sleep at the bookshop seven days a week just because. But live _together_. Crowley can feel Raphael’s heart, so long neglected, tremor in his chest. 

_I love you, I love you, I love you._

“Sure, angel,” he nods. “I’ve had enough of this city.”

Aziraphale beams. If Crowley closes his eyes, he can half imagine the light leaking from him once again. 

Aziraphale has had his eye on a cottage by the coast for a while it seems, and moving there is just a matter of Crowley agreeing and the small miracle of paperwork being completed overnight.

“What are you going to do with the books, angel?” Crowley asks, as Aziraphale carefully wraps his first editions in tissue paper. “No cottage in the world is big enough for this lot.”

“I’m selling them to a collector,” Aziraphale says, as matter-of-factly as if he’s commenting on the weather. “Well, the ones I can’t take with me. There’s a spare bedroom I’ll use as a library.” 

Crowley knows it is a spare bedroom because Aziraphale doesn’t sleep, but for a second he allows himself the fantasy that they only need the one for both of them. Then he packs it carefully away, opens his eyes to find Aziraphale watching him. 

“Are you alright, my dear?”

“Yes. Just - weird to think of you being happy to part with books.”

“Ah, well. I’ll have everything there that I need,” Aziraphale grins, patting Crowley’s arm. 

Crowley’s face is ablaze, and Raphael’s heart shudders.

**

“So what do you think of it, my dear?”

Aziraphale has turned to look at him, his eyes wide, his hand creeping along the seat of the Bentley, so close Crowley could reach out and touch it. But he doesn’t, dutifully turns and looks at the cottage instead.

It’s pretty, in a rural kind of way, and he can smell the sea on the air, so it can’t be far at all. 

“Looks nice, angel,” he grins. “Want to give me the grand tour?”

Aziraphale takes his arm to lead him inside, and Crowley wonders if he will discorporate before this new part of their lives has even begun. 

It’s nice - two bedrooms, a kitchen, a large sitting room. Space downstairs for Crowley to have an office, if he wants one. There’s a door to the outside from here too, and Aziraphale throws it open. 

“This is for you too.”  
It’s the most beautiful garden.

Crowley breathes in, Aziraphale’s hand burning his arm where it still rests. The air smells sweet and Crowley will investigate where that is coming from soon, but in the middle of the lawn is an apple tree. 

Crowley’s breath catches in his throat, and he glances at Aziraphale, but there’s nothing on his face except anticipation. The apple tree is just a happy - or sad, depending on your point of view - coincidence. 

“Do you like it?”

“It’s perfect, angel,” Crowley croaks, Raphael’s heart in his throat. “Perfect.”

**

Aziraphale is calmer at the cottage than he ever was in London. Calmer than he’s ever been on the little blue planet, calmer than Crowley has ever known him, even back in the days of Heaven and the first garden that they shared. 

He rolls his sleeves up sometimes, loosens his bow tie, unwraps the tight layers that held him together for so long, and Crowley is helpless, watching, taking it all in and wishing he could touch the soft, vulnerable skin. Aziraphale kissed his wrist once, and Crowley has never forgotten it. 

They settle into a routine, sharing meals, sitting together, going to the village, venturing further to the town. Reading and gardening. Aziraphale tries his hand at cooking. Crowley plants vegetables for him to use.

It’s wonderfully domestic, save for the moment every evening when Crowley goes up to bed alone.

It’s unbearably domestic, save for the fact that Crowley despairs of Aziraphale ever knowing the truth. 

Because sometimes he feels as though they are moving, iceberg slow, towards what they used to be. Aziraphale will hold his gaze a tad too long, sit a tad too close on the sofa, brush a hand over Crowley’s fingers when he hands him something. Blush at the touch, just like he used to.

And other times, it is as though nothing has changed. They’re careful with one another, step perfectly in time around and away, around and away. 

And Crowley still sleeps alone. 

**  
In the end, it was bound to happen in the garden. 

Things usually did for the two of them. 

Summer has come to the South Downs, a long hot summer, and Crowley is laid out under his apple tree. Even after all these years, centuries, millenia, he enjoys stretching out his limbs on a hot summer day. That is something She didn’t take away from him. Raphael’s heart is quieter on days like this, pliant and soft as it bathes in the memory. 

Crowley’s eyes are closed, and he’s remembering. Remembering how Aziraphale had come to him in the garden, how lovely he had been. Wide-eyed and curious, soft and pliant. Everything Raphael had loved about him then, Crowley still loves about him now. His angel is better than Raphael ever was. 

“Do you mind if I join you?” 

Crowley jerks out of his revels, opens one eye. Aziraphale is standing there in his shirtsleeves, rolled to the elbows. He’s lost the waistcoat and the bowtie, and Crowley tries not to look at the bare skin of his exposed neck. 

“Of course. Grass is soft. Warm.”

“Lovely,” Aziraphale smiles, goes first to his knees and then onto his back at Crowley’s side. “You looked so comfortable out here I just had to try it for myself.”

“Uh huh.”

It’s all Crowley can say, but it seems to satisfy Aziraphale. For a while they just lay side by side, and Crowley takes slow, deep breaths. Save for the unrelenting stretch of time between them, they could be back in Heaven. 

“Do you know,” Aziraphale says eventually. “Whenever, wherever, you and I have passed the time of day together in the sun, I have felt utterly content. In Mesopotamia, in the olive groves when we used to sit under the trees. In Egypt, by the river. In Greece, watching the shadows in the temples. Even when I was afraid of Heaven finding us out, I always cherished that time.”

Crowley cannot speak. Raphael’s heart is in his mouth. And he aches. He’s _aching_.

Aziraphale turns to look at him, propped up on one elbow, and Crowley closes his eyes. He can’t look at him.

It isn’t fair

And then there is a gentle tug on Crowley’s hair, and his eyes fly open. Aziraphale’s fingers are _in his hair._  
“What - angel, what are you doing?” he rasps.

Aziraphale doesn’t answer him, at least not with words. He does edge closer, his body pouring heat, and his fingers comb gently through Crowley’s hair, nails scratching at his scalp. 

Crowley trembles and the world slides out of focus, another garden behind his eyes and his own hands in Aziraphale’s hair, then it slides back and they are here and it is now.

They are _here_ and it is _now._

“Don’t stop,” he begs, catching Aziraphale’s wrist in his hand. “Please, angel. Don’t stop.”

“Oh my darling, I won’t,” Aziraphale smiles. “Come here.”

He kisses him in the grass, gentle and thorough, with a mouth that Crowley has never forgotten the taste of. 

**

Raphael’s rebellious heart rejoices.

**Author's Note:**

> I had a lot of headcanons to work through and they kind of all got dumped in this same story so it might be a bit disjointed. I like to think there is some vague coherency to it though ;)


End file.
